Kitabı oku: «The Sisters' Tragedy, with Other Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic», sayfa 3

ACT V

[Midnight.]

 
  First, two white arms that held him very close,
  And ever closer as he drew him back
  Reluctantly, the loose gold-colored hair
  A thousand delicate fibres reaching out
  Still to detain him; then some twenty steps
  Of iron staircase winding round and down,
  And ending in a narrow gallery hung
  With Gobelin tapestries—Andromeda
  Rescued by Perseus, and the sleek Diana
  With her nymphs bathing; at the farther end
  A door that gave upon a starlit grove
  Of citron and clipt palm-trees; then a path
  As bleached as moonlight, with the shadow of leaves
  Stamped black upon it; next a vine-clad length
  Of solid masonry; and last of all
  A Gothic archway packed with night, and then—
  A sudden gleaming dagger through his heart.
 

TENNYSON

I

 
  Shakespeare and Milton—what third blazoned name
     Shall lips of after-ages link to these?
     His who, beside the wild encircling seas,
  Was England's voice, her voice with one acclaim,
  For threescore years; whose word of praise was fame,
     Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities.
 

II

 
  What strain was his in that Crimean war?
     A bugle-call in battle; a low breath,
     Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death!
  So year by year the music rolled afar,
  From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar,
     Bearing the laurel or the cypress wreath.
 

III

 
  Others shall have their little space of time,
     Their proper niche and bust, then fade away
     Into the darkness, poets of a day;
  But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme,
  Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime
     On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway.
 

IV

 
  Waft me this verse across the winter sea,
     Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet,
     O winter winds, and lay it at his feet;
  Though the poor gift betray my poverty,
  At his feet lay it: it may chance that he
     Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.
 

THE SHIPMAN'S TALE

 
  Listen, my masters! I speak naught but truth.
  From dawn to dawn they drifted on and on,
  Not knowing whither nor to what dark end.
  Now the North froze them, now the hot South scorched.
  Some called to God, and found great comfort so;
  Some gnashed their teeth with curses, and some laughed
  An empty laughter, seeing they yet lived,
  So sweet was breath between their foolish lips.
  Day after day the same relentless sun,
  Night after night the same unpitying stars.
  At intervals fierce lightnings tore the clouds,
  Showing vast hollow spaces, and the sleet
  Hissed, and the torrents of the sky were loosed.
  From time to time a hand relaxed its grip,
  And some pale wretch slid down into the dark
  With stifled moan, and transient horror seized
  The rest who waited, knowing what must be.
  At every turn strange shapes reached up and clutched
  The whirling wreck, held on awhile, and then
  Slipt back into that blackness whence they came.
  Ah, hapless folk, to be so tost and torn,
  So racked by hunger, fever, fire, and wave,
  And swept at last into the nameless void—
  Frail girls, strong men, and mothers with their babes!
 
 
And was none saved?
 
 
My masters, not a soul!
 
 
  O shipman, woful, woful is thy tale!
  Our hearts are heavy and our eyes are dimmed.
  What ship is this that suffered such ill fate?
 
 
What ship, my masters? Know ye not?—The World!
 

"I VEX ME NOT WITH BROODING ON THE YEARS"

 
  I vex me not with brooding on the years
     That were ere I drew breath: why should I then
     Distrust the darkness that may fall again
     When life is done? Perchance in other spheres—
  Dead planets—I once tasted mortal tears,
     And walked as now among a throng of men,
     Pondering things that lay beyond my ken,
     Questioning death, and solacing my fears.
  Ofttimes indeed strange sense have I of this,
     Vague memories that hold me with a spell,
     Touches of unseen lips upon my brow,
  Breathing some incommunicable bliss!
     In years foregone, O Soul, was all not well?
     Still lovelier life awaits thee. Fear not thou!
 

MONODY ON THE DEATH OF WENDELL PHILLIPS

I

 
  One by one they go
  Into the unknown dark—
  Star-lit brows of the brave,
  Voices that drew men's souls.
  Rich is the land, O Death!
  Can give you dead like our dead!—
  Such as he from whose hand
  The magic web of romance
  Slipt, and the art was lost!
  Such as he who erewhile—
  The last of the Titan brood—
  With his thunder the Senate shook;
  Or he who, beside the Charles,
  Untoucht of envy or hate,
  Tranced the world with his song;
  Or that other, that gray-eyed seer
  Who in pastoral Concord ways
  With Plato and Hafiz walked.
 

II

 
  Not of these was the man
  Whose wraith, through the mists of night,
  Through the shuddering wintry stars,
  Has passed to eternal morn.
  Fit were the moan of the sea
  And the clashing of cloud on cloud
  For the passing of that soul!
 
 
  Ever he faced the storm!
  No weaver of rare romance,
  No patient framer of laws,
  No maker of wondrous rhyme,
  No bookman wrapt in his dream.
  His was the voice that rang
  In the fight like a bugle-call,
  And yet could be tender and low
  As when, on a night in June,
  The hushed wind sobs in the pines.
  His was the eye that flashed
  With a sabre's azure gleam,
  Pointing to heights unwon!
 

III

 
  Not for him were these days
  Of clerkly and sluggish calm—
  To the petrel the swooping gale!
  Austere he seemed, but the hearts
  Of all men beat in his breast;
  No fetter but galled his wrist,
  No wrong that was not his own.
  What if those eloquent lips
  Curled with the old-time scorn?
  What if in needless hours
  His quick hand closed on the hilt?
  'Twas the smoke from the well-won fields
  That clouded the veteran's eyes.
  A fighter this to the end!
 
 
  Ah, if in coming times
  Some giant evil arise,
  And Honor falter and pale,
  His were a name to conjure with!
  God send his like again!
 

INTERLUDES
ECHO-SONG

I

 
  Who can say where Echo dwells?
     In some mountain-cave, methinks,
     Where the white owl sits and blinks;
  Or in deep sequestered dells,
  Where the foxglove hangs its bells,
                 Echo dwells.
                      Echo!
                           Echo!
 

II

 
  Phantom of the crystal Air,
     Daughter of sweet Mystery!
     Here is one has need of thee;
  Lead him to thy secret lair,
  Myrtle brings he for thy hair—
                 Hear his prayer,
                      Echo!
                           Echo!
 

III

 
  Echo, lift thy drowsy head,
     And repeat each charmed word
     Thou must needs have overheard
  Yestere'en ere, rosy-red,
  Daphne down the valley fled—
                 Words unsaid,
                      Echo!
                           Echo!
 

IV

 
  Breathe the vows she since denies!
     She hath broken every vow;
     What she would she would not now—
  Thou didst hear her perjuries.
  Whisper, whilst I shut my eyes,
                 Those sweet lies,
                      Echo!
                           Echo!